TASMANIANS eagerly lining up for a journey on Australia’s internet superhighway face a big U-turn, with NBN chief Ziggy Switkowski confirming yesterday that the premium fibre-optic service would not be rolled out to all premises as originally promised.

Dr Switkowski, who was in Tasmania to provide an NBN update, said there would be a mix of technologies, including the use of existing copper wire for premises connected to the network from next year.

But he said up to 80,000 Tasmanian premises would get the all-fibre rollout this year.

Premier Lara Giddings said the Federal Government had broken its NBN promise.

``It’s absolutely appalling that the Australian Government is doing this to us because this is about Tasmania’s future,” Ms Giddings said.

“It’s about our economy, it’s about jobs, it’s about how we future-proof this state, it is about how we compete on the global levels.”

Comments on this story

So you add a house in the outer suburbs to NBN. Gamers and video hounds can avoid having to leave the couch to go to the video store. How does that adds any jobs to our State?

Nicholas Zwart of Primrose Sands Posted at 1:22 PM February 16, 2014

"Australia is open of business" says Idealogue Abbott, whilst doing everything in this power to stifle investment and innovation. Mr No in opposition has been replaced by Prime Minister No. Welcome to the Neo Dark Ages, serfs!

pat wilson of hobart town Posted at 7:31 PM February 15, 2014

John Smyth of Hobart. POSTED AT 1:10 PM TODAY. "It's a real tragedy that Liberal ideology will mean the country is relegated to a horrendous network structure". What substantive evidence do you have to unequivocally confirm that this state of affairs would be any different under Labor? Remember, Labor had 6 years to progress NBN and handed an absolute mess, a basket case, to the Coalition when Labor lost government last year. The diabolical mess that you and the rest of Australia are seeing in the NBN is the result of Labor, once again being caught out for over promising, under delivering and then expecting everyone else to wipe up the mess after the electorate sees through their incompetence and votes them out of office. Trust me, the extent of the mess that Labor and The Greens have left behind will take much longer than a year to wipe up.